


finding reasons to stay where we are

by thotsandfeelings



Category: The West Wing
Genre: F/M, Pointless fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:42:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25829119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thotsandfeelings/pseuds/thotsandfeelings
Summary: “What the hell happened?” He demands, eyes running over her and falling on the white cast that’s wrapped around her left foot.Donna just looks up at him sheepishly. “It’s really not a big deal.”
Relationships: Josh Lyman/Donna Moss
Comments: 15
Kudos: 122





	finding reasons to stay where we are

Josh bursts into the emergency room at G.W. with his heart in his throat and eyes wild. He looks around frantically until he spots a flash of blonde hair and sees that Donna is laying down in one of the beds with her eyes closed. He hurries over and finally exhales when she turns to look at him.

“What the hell happened?” He demands, eyes running over her and falling on the white cast that’s wrapped around her left foot.

Donna just looks up at him sheepishly. “It’s really not a big deal.”

“Donna, you’re laying in a hospital bed with a cast on your leg. It’s kind of a big deal. What happened? Ginger didn’t give me any details, just passed me a note that said ‘Donna’s in the ER, call her when you get a chance’. I had to run out on the Labor Union meeting to ask her which ER she was talking about!”

“Calm down,” Donna says when his voice volume makes the patient in the bed across from her wake up and shoot him a glare. “I’m fine, Josh, I promise. It’s silly, honestly,” Donna says and a blush starts creeping up her neck. “I tripped. No big deal.”

“You tripped.”

“Yes.”

“On what?”

“Well, see that’s where it gets silly and, frankly, embarrassing, so can we skip over that and get to the part where you drive me home?”

“Donna, what did you trip over?”

“Josh,” she whines.

“Donna,” he imitates her childish tone.

Donna huffs and mumbles something unintelligibly, refusing to look him in the eyes. “What was that?” Josh says, cupping his ear.

“I slipped on a banana peel, okay?”

Josh blinks. “Like in Mario Kart?”

Donna throws her arms up and covers her reddening face with a loud groan. “If you’re gonna mock me, which I can admit that I probably deserve, can you at least do it while signing me out so I can go home and die in peace?”

“You really slipped on a banana peel?” He grins, anxiety falling off his shoulders and making way for amusement now that he knows she’s okay. Only his assistant would hurt herself in such a cartoonish way. “I’m totally calling you Princess Peach from now on.”

“Go away from me,” Donna grumbles, lifting one arm to point him in the direction of the nurses station and Josh just chuckles loudly as he walks over to sign her release forms and drive her home.

* * * 

“I swear to God, Donna, I’m at my actual wit’s end with these people. I’m about two seconds away from drafting a bill to abolish the House of Representatives, democracy be damned.”

Donna snorts at that and continues typing the notes he asked her for. She’s been laid up in her apartment after her little spill yesterday and Josh had revoked her White House badge so she couldn’t go in to work even if she wanted to. He’s here on his lunch (cranberry walnut salad for her, honey turkey and swiss croissant for him), pacing and ranting about some rogue Democrats who aren’t cooperating. 

“Did you try Boone? He’s still scared of you from the last round you had with him over Appropriations,” Donna says absently, taking a sip from her ginger ale.

“Won’t answer my call.”

“What about Watson?”

“She’s my next stop when I leave here.” Josh groans and flops down on the couch beside Donna, carefully lifting her propped up ankle into his lap. 

“You’ll get it done, Josh. You always do.”

“Yeah.”

“Hey,” she says, poking his thigh with her uninjured foot, “Leo wouldn’t have put you on point for this if he didn’t think you could do it. Sam and Toby have meetings later today and next week, too, so, you know, chill out.” 

Josh gives her a deadpan look. “You’re lucky you’re injured and I can’t fire you for insubordination.”

“Impervious,” she sniffs and finishes typing her memo, closing the laptop he’d brought with him and setting it on the coffee table. “Besides, it’s Friday afternoon on Labor Day weekend. Everyone’s checked out until Tuesday. I’m sure you can smack them into submission then.”

Josh just rests his head on the back of the couch, letting his fingers tap lightly on her cast. They sit for a minute, both getting lost in their thoughts when the silence is pierced by Josh’s beeper going off. He looks at the message and then shifts to pull his cell out of his pocket, hitting a couple buttons and holding it to his ear.

“How’d it go?” He asks whoever is on the other end of the phone call and Donna scooches down on the couch, sprawling more fully across Josh’s legs, effectively trapping him. She can feel his tension rise before he says “that piece of-” and she nudges him harder, giving him a stern look. 

“Wait, what?” Josh says and tries to sit up, waylaid by Donna’s legs. He starts snapping his fingers at her, reaching around wildly for something and she sticks her blue Sharpie in his hand. 

She watches as he uncaps it with his teeth and starts to write something on her cast. Donna gasps, “Josh, no!” but he ignores her, still listening to whatever is being said in his ear and finishes writing his thought across her plastered ankle. He recaps the lid and taps it against her bare toes that are peeking out from the cast. 

“Got it. Thanks, Sam. Yeah, Peach is fine,” he smirks over at Donna and she huffs. “I’ll swing by your office after I meet with Watson. Bye.”

Josh closes his phone and turns to Donna. “I need everything you can find on the new AG from Georgia - parking tickets, conviction records, books he checked out of his public library when he was in high school, alright? Everything.”

Donna just stares at him, her brow furrowed in annoyance. “There was a note card _right_ in front of you. Now I have to hobble around with a piece of possible legislation on my ankle for the next 5 weeks?”

“Well, at the rate we’re going, it probably _won’t_ pass and we can toss this,” tapping her cast with the Sharpie, “in the garbage. Just like the rest of my hopes and dreams for this country.”

She just rolls her eyes at his dramatics. “Josh-”

“Here,” he says, uncapping the marker again and goes to draw something else on the cast.

Donna twitches indignantly. “Joshua Lyman, I swear to God, if you start writing out the Constitution I’ll make your life a living-”

“Done. Look,” Josh says, gently lifting her ankle so she can see his creation. He’s drawn 2 stick figures, one with long hair and the other with shorter curly hair. The one with long hair is pointing at the curly haired one with a thought bubble that reads ‘Josh!’ in it. The curly haired character, with its arms raised passionately, had a small 'Donna!' in its thought bubble to match, a large grin adorning its face. Her very own personal walk-and-talk. 

Donna has to bite her lip to hide her smile at her ridiculously endearing boss, schooling her features when he turns again to face her. " The Josh one should be a little shorter, don't you think?"

He just gives her a look, ignoring her words. “It's a reminder,” Josh says. “To keep my ass in gear so I don’t make a fool of you and your ankle. This piece of possible legislation will be law, Donnatella, mark my words.” He plucks her big toe once and lifts her legs off of his gently, replacing himself with a pillow. 

“AG from Georgia.”

Donna nods her head once, back in assistant mode. “Books and parking tickets. Got it.”

“Email it to me as soon as you’re done. I’ll leave this with you for now, but don’t-”

“Look at your private folders, I know.”

“Good.”

He steps back and grabs his suit jacket from the coffee table and shakes it out before throwing it around his shoulders. Donna sits up and puts his computer back on her lap, opening it to start her research. 

“I’ll come by tomorrow to pick it up,” Josh says, reaching down to grab his book bag. “You’re still on the No Fly List for the White House.”

“So are you, remember? Leo ordered you to take an actual long weekend, starting at 5pm tonight, after your little nutty on Tuesday.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he mutters. 

“Take the weekend, Josh. Fly down to see your mom, go to New York for a game, plant a garden for all I care. Just take the weekend. You’ve been burying yourself for months, okay? You’ve earned it. Congress isn’t going anywhere.”

“Not if I had anything to say about it.” 

“Right. Your plans to become an abolitionist.”

“Hey, I could get it done if I really wanted to.”

“I have no doubt.”

Josh just looks at her for a minute, with her hair falling out of the haphazard pencil bun on top of her head and her brow crinkled in concentration, and his heart tugs a little in his chest. The pure adoration he has for his assistant has been coming sharper into focus and becoming near impossible to hide. He doesn’t know what makes him do it. Maybe he’s truly worn out from Congress and he’s lost his mind or maybe it’s just because he’s never been fully coherent when he’s this close to her, but he doesn’t stop himself when he asks, “what if I just hung out with you this weekend?”

Donna’s eyes don’t leave the computer screen when she replies. “Why? So you can have an excuse to work?”

Josh takes a breath. He could walk it back, fall into the usual banter they revert to when things begin to get too real between them, but the fight’s just not in him today.

“No, I was thinking we could order some pasta from that really good Italian place on Sixth and watch a movie or something.”

Donna looks up at him this time, searching his eyes for a moment. She must find what she’s looking for because she turns back to the computer screen and shrugs. “Okay.”

“Yeah?” Josh asks, a slow smile creeping on his face. 

“Sure. You can help me do my laundry since I’m immobile,” Donna smirks up at him, laughing fully when he whines her name.

“If you’re just gonna make me do chores, then forget it.”

“Are you gonna get the cheesy bread and salad with that _incredible_ house dressing, too?”

“Donna, who you talkin’ to? You talkin’ to me?” Josh says, doing his horrible Robert De Niro impersonation and gesturing with his hand at her and she rolls her eyes in mock exasperation. 

“We aren’t watching Taxi Driver again either, so you can get that out of your head right now.”

Josh grins. “That’s a yes, then?”

“Add some shrimp to that alfredo and you've got a deal.”

“It's a date," he says, trying his hardest to stay casual, but still grinning at her. "I’ll be back later after I meet with Sam,” he says, pulling the strap of his book bag onto his shoulder and walking towards her front door. “Try not to let Bowser take you out of the race again while I’m gone.”

“Leave now,” Donna growls. “And be out of the West Wing by 5. I don’t wanna get a call from Margaret telling me Leo's had you arrested for trespassing. It'd take me forever to come bail your ass out.”

“Yes, dear,” he deadpans, failing to hide his dimples as he opens her door to leave. “Bye.”

“Bye.”

Her door slams shut and Donna looks back down at the laptop, her eyes catching on his drawing on her ankle. A goofy smile starts to creep over her face until she whips her head back to her front door.

Wait. Did he say _date_?

**Author's Note:**

> I've been flicking through a prompt generator and this one stuck out to me. The prompt was: "Person A hurt their ankle and is laid up with a cast and crutches. Person B is sitting next to them, doodling little hearts on their cast to cheer them up." So I tried my own little J/D spin on it. Still don't know if I like the way Donna's voice comes thru in the dialogue. She's always been a little harder for me to hear in my head unlike Josh, but I tried! Let me know what you think :)
> 
> Title is from lyrics to Heartbreak Weather by the cute Irish one from One Direction.


End file.
